Because Don remained a fairly small system and could come ashore near or to the south of Corpus Christi, it's not clear whether the Beaumont area will receive significant rain from the system Friday.

Most areas probably will get less than 1 inch of rain if the current forecast track holds, hardly enough to make a dent in the region's drought.

Other than rain chances of 50 to 60 percent across the metro area - and higher to the southwest of the city - Don's impact on Southeast Texas is expected to be minimal, with a slight chance of tropical storm-force winds out of the southeast and seas 1 to 2 feet higher than normal off Galveston.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said they believed the storm would come ashore somewhere along the Texas coast between Matagorda Bay and just north of Brownsville, with Corpus Christi the most likely location.

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The average forecast error for hurricane track forecasts one day before a projected landfall is about 60 miles.

Valley spared

Don's projected path led to sighs of relief in the Rio Grande Valley, which by midmorning Thursday was declared out of the danger zone, save for swells and rip currents that could be dangerous to boaters and deadly to unsuspecting swimmers at South Padre Island.

But farther north, the season's first Texas-bound storm had folks readying for the worst.

"The whole city's on a heightened state of alert," Corpus Christi Assistant Fire Chief Andy Cardiel said, noting that the city had partially activated its emergency operations center and was urging residents to begin securing loose objects around their homes and to have boarding-up and other emergency supplies ready.

"Even a minor tropical storm can blow trees down, cause power outages, and kick things around," he said. "We also have to anticipate the possibility of this thing strengthening at the last moment before coming to shore."

Don's core remained poorly organized Thursday because of moderate levels of wind shear in the upper levels of the atmosphere, as well as incursions of fairly dry air as it crossed the central Gulf of Mexico.

For these reasons, although the Gulf waters are quite warm, forecasters did not expect Don to rapidly intensify as some storms, such as Hurricane Humberto, have done in recent years.

Not unwelcome

If the forecast holds, Don should come ashore as a strong tropical storm accompanied by a few feet of storm surge, and bring a maximum of 3 to 5 inches of precipitation across a swath of southern Texas.

The system, therefore, won't be entirely unwelcome in a state that's been grappling with a drought for nine months that is its worst since the 1950s.

"There are a lot of people in Texas who want Don to come to them," said Bill Proenza, director of the National Weather Service's Southern Region, which includes Texas. "You don't see that very often with the tropics."